Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, December 11, 2004:
Dinner with Dave and Craig at Internet and Society
If you're in the market for a powerful and user friendly Help Desk solution, please take a look at my company's flagship product HelpSpot.Tonight I attended the food for thought dinner with 12 very interesting folks. OK food and good conversation. I've never really had dinner before with bloggers or other people I only know from the internet. It's an odd experience. I've been reading Dave Winer's weblog, Scripting News, for 2-3 years and it's weird to be able to start a conversation in the middle. I know almost everything that's happened to this guy over the past 3 years but he doesn't know anything about me. It was very interesting and we talked alot about Podcasting, Adam Curry, and the new company.
Then across the table was Craig Newmark of craigslist fame. Just a normal guy. He almost seemed uncomfortable with the fact that he is "craig". We talked alot about the legal environment and it's impact on craigslist and the stuff that keeps him up at night. We also talked a little about some of their technology. Apparently the list is Linux/Apache/Mod Perl. I can't remember the DB, I think it was MySQL.
The ride home was interesting. Dave, Craig, and me got a ride to the hotel from one of the other folks at dinner (I can't remember her name). She has this little old boxy BMW 2 door so me(6'4") and Dave(6'4" ish) squeezed in the back and Craig was in the front. It was a sort of surreal experience being squeezed in this little car with these guys I really admire. I mean hey the guy who invented RSS, the guy who started craigslist and me! Boooinnggg
Update: As per Craig below her name was Betsy and they use MySQL. Thanks Craig.
Discussion
Hey, thanks for the kind words, but for sure, I'm not a big deal.
I think her name's Betsy, probably will be at the conference today.
We use mysql.
Craig
Created by Craig Newmark on 12.11.2004 2:12 am
Hey you found me! That was fast. Thanks for the update, as you can see my memory stinks. See you over there in a few.
Created by Ian Landsman on 12.11.2004 2:12 am
Dave invented RSS? That's a pretty interesting piece of revisionist history. I recall Netscape having something called RDF long before Dave stole it, added a few features and renamed it RSS.
Created by Anonymous on 12.11.2004 2:12 am
OK OK I don't want to get into a big war. That's really not the point. I would say that all good ideas build on others and it's rare for something to be invented truly from nothing. In any event, RSS is certainly the most popular format at this point and Dave had something to do with that regardless of the history and everyones take on what that history is.
Created by Ian Landsman on 12.11.2004 2:12 am
I'm with you. Dave invented RSS as we know it and use it today. It would have died without him. Go Dave. (Go Ian too.) (and Go Away Anonymous)
Created by Anonymous Too on 12.11.2004 2:12 am
"it’s weird to be able to start a conversation in the middle"
Good description! It is weird!
Created by Anon3 on 12.11.2004 2:12 am
Don't get me wrong. RSS is great. I use it all the time. My beef with Dave is that he runs around taking sole credit for the work of others. No doubt he is a pioneer and infuential force in the world of RSS, but he needs to stop putting forth the impression that he "invented" RSS. That's like saying Microsoft invented the computer. Nothing could be further than the truth. Dave popularized RSS, by extending the work of Netscape's RDF team. I'd hardly call that "invention".
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Created by Anonymous on 12.11.2004 2:12 am